Calaveras firefighters join battle

SAN ANDREAS - Ten fire engines and crews from nine local fire departments from Calaveras County departed from a muster in Copperopolis early Tuesday afternoon to help with the Rim Fire near Groveland in Tuolumne County.

SAN ANDREAS - Ten fire engines and crews from nine local fire departments from Calaveras County departed from a muster in Copperopolis early Tuesday afternoon to help with the Rim Fire near Groveland in Tuolumne County.

The Rim Fire, at 10,000 acres and growing, is the largest so far this season in the immediate region. Tuesday it had closed Highway 120 into Yosemite and was sending a vast sheet of smoke north over Tuolumne and Calaveras counties.

The Calaveras firefighters, most of whom are volunteers, say they welcome the chance to help. Service on such out-of-county strike teams is also an opportunity for the volunteers to temporarily receive full pay for their work, and to face hardships, test their skills, and work shoulder to shoulder with their peers.

"I've been looking forward to it all summer," said Don Bozzo, 54, a volunteer firefighter from Mokelumne Hill who was making his first deployment with a strike team.

Don Bozzo, who is a general contractor, said he's now available for firefighting because of the dismal local economy. "I'm hard hit from the depression we went through," he said.

Other volunteers, such as Jay Lange, 49, engine boss for the crew from Murphys Fire, have to temporarily leave behind active businesses. "I have someone who at least runs my office when I'm gone," Lange said.

Some of those at Tuesday's muster are going on their third or fourth out-of-county strike team this summer. It is the first strike team this summer, however, for an engine from Angels Camp, said Tom Starks, the Angels Camp engine boss.

Starks said that's because agencies call for different types of crews and equipment depending on circumstances. "It's really steep, nasty terrain, so they want smaller rigs right now," Starks said of the Rim Fire.

No one headed out on the strike teams has any idea when they will be home. And not just because it is impossible to predict how long the Rim Fire will rage in steep canyons near the Clavey and Tuolumne rivers. Lightning storms forecast the next few days could start more fires.

Sometimes, strike teams can be re-deployed to new fires as fast as they finish at the previous one.

"I did that last summer, went from fire to fire to fire," said Scott Mullin, a captain with San Andreas Fire Department and a strike team leader.

Mullin noted that this has been a long, dry summer, which has meant danger for strike team members. In June, 19 members of an Arizona strike team lost their lives in an inferno.

"We really need to be on our toes with the extreme fire behavior," Mullin said. "It's exciting. By the same token, we are heading into a very potentially dangerous, deadly situation."

Even as the Calaveras crews headed to Tuolumne County, federal officials managing the Rim Fire were calling for more equipment from agencies in Stanislaus County as well as state and federal fire resources elsewhere.

The Calaveras County Air Pollution Control District Tuesday issued an advisory warning that the Rim Fire will likely generate unhealthy quantities of smoke across the region for days to come.